Dan Aaron Polster (born December 6, 1951) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Polster mediated a settlement between the city of Cleveland and the family of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who was killed by a white police officer in 2014. In December 2017, a federal judicial panel selected Polster to preside over more than 3,000 consolidated prescription opioid-related lawsuits in multidistrict litigation known as the National Prescription Opiate Litigation. A trial for the litigation began in October 2021.
Career output and lasting influence
Opinions attributed per year · peak 2/year
Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 50/year
Ohio Northern District Court · 1998–
Both charts share the same year axis. Opinion counts include only opinions in our corpus attributed to this judge so far — a year at zero can mean an attribution gap, not judicial silence. Influence typically outlasts the career: citations keep climbing after the last opinion.
- Gender
- Male
- Race
- White
Prior employment
Northern District of OhioAssistant U.S. attorney · 1982–1998- Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of JusticeTrial attorney · 1976–1982
Appointments
1998–2021 · Appointed by William J. Clinton (Democratic)
Education
J.D. · 1976- Harvard CollegeA.B. · 1972